TimeSplitters: Future Perfect Interview

The TimeSplitters franchise has quickly become one of the best FPS franchises for consoles over the last few years. With the latest iteration, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect hitting shelves this week we thought it might be cool to send ten questions to the development team. Thankfully they took the time to answer them. Check them out.

GamingNexus :What factors do you credit for the success of the TimeSplitters franchise in such a competitive FPS market?TSFP Team : The incredibly smooth and fast gameplay has always elevated the series and made it one of the best multiplayer experiences available on any system. The humor and character designs are also distinctive factors. We have a core group of fans, but the gameplay is also very accessible so anyone can pick up the controls and start fragging people.

GamingNexus :Can you explain how Time Splitters: Future Perfect has changed (if any) since Electronic Arts signed the project? Were there things you were able to do that you might not have been able to do without the backing of EA?TSFP Team :EA asked us some important questions in the early part of development, which made us, consider our approach to some of the things we wanted to do with TS:FP. It was really useful to have someone come in from the outside with a fresh approach which encouraged us to focus on specific issues. Every publisher will always have different ideas about what they think would be good in a game and it is always good to get that input.

GamingNexus :Certainly one of the best aspects of the original TimeSplitters games was the fact that you could pick from dozens of truly unique characters from all different eras. Have you gone through and upgraded these characters, and most importantly, are we able to create our own and use them online?TSFP Team :All of the characters have been brought up to date and look better than ever. There are almost 150 to chose from when you play on-line so we hope you will never get bored of looking at them all, and seeing/hearing what they do and say when you pick them.

GamingNexus :What lessons have you learned from other successful online first person shooters?TSFP Team :The Map Share feature of online will allow players to rate maps out of 5. You can then see the highest rated maps, the most downloaded maps, the newest maps today/this week etc. We hope to run many competitions for budding map designers.GamingNexus :Can you talk about some of the mini-games that will be in the game?TSFP Team :The Challenge mode contains 21 different games with a wide variety of objectives, from beheading zombies, to driving cats, to breaking plates, to keeping robotic chimps dancing at a disco. Each one will test a different skill, and will yield unlockable characters and weapons.

GamingNexus :One of the things that sets your game apart from so many console first person shooter's is the ability to create your own levels. Can you expand on how this feature has been enhanced since TimeSplitters 2 and how it will be handled online?TSFP Team :The interface is a lot easier to use, and there is even a beginner level for people who want to jump right in and start creating a map. The advanced level gives the experts a lot more options to work with.

GamingNexus :Outside of some graphical differences, can you explain how the online modes will differ between the PS2 and Xbox versions? For example, will the PS2 version have friends lists, clans, and some of the things Xbox Live users take for granted? TSFP Team :PS2 will indeed have a friends list, but unfortunately will not have clans. We hope that players will enjoy this online experience on PS2 much more than any experienced before, and we are really proud of how it has turned out.

GamingNexus :Will you be supporting the game with downloadable content after launch? If so, have you decided on what kinds of enhancements you would bring to the game? (new levels, guns, or level creator enhancements)TSFP Team :We are still debating this, but initially we will be supplying a lot of maps for the MapMaker.

GamingNexus :Since the game revolves around characters going through all kinds of time periods, were there any movies or books that influenced the look and feel of the worlds?TSFP Team : Obviously everyone has their favourite books and films, and that will always influence your approach to certain aspects of the game. However, we have such a good supply of ideas from within the company that we never have any problem coming up with scenarios for our games. The nice thing about the TimeSplitters series is that they do allow all of the staff here to be very creative. If an idea is good we can usually work it in to the TimeSplitters universe without too much trouble.

We’d like to thank the team for taking the time to answer our questions and we’re anxiously looking forward to getting our hands on the game. For more information on the game check out the Official Website

* The product in this article was sent to us by the developer/company for review.